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Bamarandi - Saturday 21st November - Ships in the Night



Position 16.30.406N 033.22.022W

We continue to tac back and forth as the wind has not really changed much. We covered 189nms last night in total - 151nm of then towards our destination - the rest taken up with tacs. Not having the use of our gennaker downwind sail is starting to have a building compound effect now. We have sailed as close to the wind as we can and we have our boom retained with a line to stop it banging in the waves and the sometimes changing wind. To achieve the progress we have has meant us letting our boom swing out as far as we can and then tying it back into that position with our genoa flying out front.

We have averaged reasonable knots per hour with this setup and we have quite a few boats in the fleet around us.

A yacht called Blue Raven was very close at around 11pm and we could see their navigation lights quite clearly together with their blip on our nav screen. They were on our starboard side so had right of way - so we should pass behind them - it was touch and go whether we would need to divert course and with our boom tied back we did not want to have to do anything last minute. So we started up one engine and ran it for 10 mins to power ahead and avoid any hasty manoeuvres. 

We also saw Aoibh (pronounced Eve) appear on our AIS - another Fountain Pajot cat we had seen and met some of the crew in Mindelo. We hailed them on the radio a few times but they did not respond for some while and when they eventually did we agreed to speak on channel 72, but when we went to that channel they were not there. This was at around 1am, they must have ben going in and out of radio range. Another watch picked up with them in the morning and they were doing fine and flying their gennaker.

We saw quite a few yachts in the fleet come and go on our AIS during the night in front and behind us.

There has been various conversations and banter going on with surrounding boats we see pop up on our AIS from time to time including some discussion about a tummy bug nearly everyone on the fleet we have spoken to seems to have had including most of us on board. Everyone is OK and it was fairly mild but some have been on toast and water for a few days.

Our tender which is slung under the back of the boat moved slightly in the night and a strap worked itself loose so we are keeping a careful eye on that. We took the outboard off it before we set off from Antibes and it has travelled extremely well sat on a frame Donald made for it.

It is a sunny warm day and the wind is blowing at 18-20kts, we have main sail and genoa up on a tac to the south of our bearing line to St Lucia doing about 8.5kts at the moment.

Everyone is fine on board (apart from getting over slightly dodgy tums for some) and we are all enjoying the trip.


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